Canmore floods the worst southern Alberta residents have ever seen

Canmore, Alta. — Overnight, this beautiful mountain resort in Canmore has became a flooded swamp beseiged by torrential rain, mud and rock, the conditions exacerbated by melting snowtops and raging rivers.

The Cougar Creek, which runs through town, has spilled over its banks to swallow the adjacent subdivision, hydro poles falling like timber over the neighbourhood skating rink and close to homes that fill the region.

From my view at the Ramada Hotel on Bow Valley Trail, parking lots and businesses on the other side of the street have been consumed by water, and threaten to engulf the entire road: a busy thoroughfare and main artery across town.

I was awakened after dawn by the rumblings of hotel guests filing to the lobby, the power having been temporarily cut because of the rain. We gathered under the archway of the building, astonished by the breadth of the water, but, like any emergency situation, it was only moments before we heard stories from people who had suffered more dramatically: shuttled to the hotel overnight, including 22 long-haul truckers evacuated, by air, from the highway leading into town, their combined five million tonnes sinking into the bowed road of Highway 1A, the first time in history it has split apart.

Prince Albert’s Curtis Robert, his Western Star 2000 carrying a load of meat products, was the first to be stopped on his way to Canmore at around 11:30 p.m. last night.

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“I saw lights, and a few RCMP, and I thought it was an accident at first,” he said. “Pretty soon, the lineup behind me lengthened and I was boxed in as the rain started to fall harder, swamping the road ahead. I told the RCMP that the best thing to do would be to close the exit, back up all of us — there were only a few trucks at first — and route us to Calgary. But they wouldn’t listen. We were trapped there, with the nose of my truck at the edge of the road, which was getting swamped and eaten away by the rain.”

Mr. Robert believed that his vehicle was eventually consumed by the sinkhole in the road, whose underpinning was unable to resist the flood.

Melanie and Harry Petterson, who had been in contact with sympathetic dispatchers, expressed disbelief at the decision of the police.

“If they’d reacted quickly, we could have figured out a way to save our trucks. But now, they could all be gone,” said Harry.

“Eventually,” Melanie told me, “they got us out by helicopter, but that was after nine hours sitting in our rigs. By that time, the road behind us had flooded, too, and it was too late to move one way or the other. One of the drivers told the RCMP that he wouldn’t leave his vehicle, and was arrested for his decision.”

Closer to the mountains that ring the city, homes have been flooded and buildings threatened by the mass of water roaring from the skies and the hillsides.

One friend spent most of her day helping people get to lower ground while watching a tractor try to divert the culvert, brooking the momentum of the water coursing into town.

Businesses have closed — many, in fact, seem abandoned; their lights on and chairs gathered around tables as if waiting for customers — and a few cars amble through city roads, their tires lost in the brown-grey water.

Residents agree that June is usually the wettest month here, but no one has ever seen flooding this bad.

All they do — all we do — is stare at the clouds wreathed about the mountains and wait for the skies to dry.